


I Call Your Name

by Savageandwise



Series: You Know My Name (Look Up The Number) [1]
Category: The Beatles (Band)
Genre: Angst, Drunken phone calls, Late 70s, M/M, McLennon, Work of fiction, not my take on reality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-26
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2019-07-17 16:57:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16099880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Savageandwise/pseuds/Savageandwise
Summary: LSDandKizuki prompted me: could you do john drunk dialling paul in either early or late seventies? (maybe even both but I don't want to be greedy) extra angst topping? you know I die for your angst :-DThe word of the week was tragedy.Maybe there will be a sequel. We'll see.The title is from Paul's song Call Me Back Again.





	I Call Your Name

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LSDAndKizuki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LSDAndKizuki/gifts).



> LSDandKizuki prompted me: could you do john drunk dialling paul in either early or late seventies? (maybe even both but I don't want to be greedy) extra angst topping? you know I die for your angst :-D 
> 
> The word of the week was tragedy.
> 
> Maybe there will be a sequel. We'll see.  
> The title is from Paul's song Call Me Back Again.

“I dreamed you wrote me a hundred notes. Put them in bottles. Threw them in the sea.” John's voice was soft around the edges, slurred with emotion and drink. 

It was two in the morning in New York. Paul imagined him flat on his back, his hand curled around a tumbler. He didn't even know what John drank these days. It was seven AM in London. Too early for whiskey.

“That's a charming tale. How did it end?” Paul asked calmly, clutched the phone so tightly he couldn't feel his fingers.

“They washed up on my island, a fleet of bottles, sleek and shiny as dolphins.”

“What did they say?”

He could see John's island, waves lapping against the edges, dark and jagged, like hungry tongues.

“Who?”

“The notes. Did you read them? Why are you awake? Where is she?” Paul asked, each question a bullet. 

“Don't ruin it.” John's voice crackled down the line.

“It's already ruined.”

It had been ruined for years, long before they put an ocean between them. There were no tragic messages in bottles. All they had were their songs.

John sighed into the receiver, Paul's skin prickled with longing. “Don't say that, darling.”

“Oh, darling is it?” he laughed weakly.

“They said call me back again,” John said. “So I did.”

“When you wake up you won't remember a thing. And you'll have a devil of a hangover.”

“I'll remember.”

“You never do.”

“I'll remember,” John insisted.

“Yeah? I love you,” Paul said emphatically, like he was challenging him to a duel. “I love you.”

“You love me,” John sighed.

“You going to remember that?”

He thought of all those bottles at the bottom of the ocean. Their paper missives secure behind glass, each word cut out of his heart like a ransom note.


End file.
